A New York couple, Tamir and Mandy Raanan, are complaining about their treatment on a JetBlue flight from Ft. Lauderdale to New York on July 2.

There was apparently a confrontation after a passenger complained that the youngest of the Raanan daughters, Eden, 1, kicked the seat in front of her. The passenger said to Mandy Raanan that she should ‘tie her daughter’s legs’ so that she doesn’t kick the seat.

This, of course, raised the ire of Raanan and she and the passenger exchanged words. In a statement, JetBlue says that expletives and threats of violence were made, but the Raanans deny those claims. The family also says that the situation with the other passenger was resolved quickly.

Other passengers can be heard on the video confirming that ‘nothing happened’ and that the situation was resolved. One passenger said, ‘This is terrible.’

Videos show Tamir and Mandy Raanan in a heated confrontation with an airline employee after they were removed from the packed plane after a fellow flier got angry with their one-year-old daughter.

The married couple said they were ‘stranded’ with their girls and blacklisted by the airline ‘without reason’.

They were told to get off the plane after their one-year-old daughter kicked the seat in front of her and agitated the passenger on the July 2 flight.

Much of the discussion with Armando Gonzalez, a JetBlue manager, was recorded on Tamir’s cell phone.

Part 1:

JetBlue have refuted the family’s version of events and said they were compelled to remove them because of their violent and threatening behavior.

In a statement to DailyMail.com, they said: ‘After a verbal altercation that included physical threats and profanities against a nearby customer, the aircraft door was reopened and our airports team politely asked the customers to step off to discuss the situation.’

Things got so heated that police got involved.

From the audio, it seems that the couple was concerned that the action was being taken solely against them and not against the customer that they had the confrontation with.

When tamir asks if that passenger is being removed from the flight, Gonzalez replies, ‘No.’

Mandy Raanan asks if the customer telling her to tie her toddler’s legs qualifies as ‘unacceptable behavior’ to the airline. She receives no answer.

Part 2:

The family was removed from the flight.

The Raanans had checked their luggage, including their baby’s supplies, and couldn’t get a flight until the next day.

…JetBlue told them they could take a flight with the airline the following day but that they needed to find their own overnight accommodations.

To make matters worse, the family’s luggage was not removed leaving them stranded an extra night in Florida without their baby supplies or clothes.

Upon arriving at the airport the next morning the family was told they were banned from all future flights with JetBlue while the airline investigates.

They were flown home on another airline.

And JetBlue just piled on the insults…

Their luggage with JetBlue never made it to New York, and it was mailed to them a week later.

A lawyer for the family, David Templer, says what happened to the Raanan family is illegal, and that the statement JetBlue provided saying there was cursing and physical threats shows as much.

‘It is convenient misinformation. If the incident had occurred the way JetBlue now claims, then it would have been a violation of laws and regulations to not immediately report it to Federal or State law enforcement, which did not occur,’ Templer says.

‘JetBlue’s conduct was unprofessional and reckless, if not malicious. It’s staff is poorly trained. It unnecessarily humiliated and then abandoned an entire family, including infants and toddlers,‘ Temple adds.
Source: Daily Mail

The Raanans are banned from traveling JetBlue.

Wow.

I wouldn’t wish what this family went through on my worst enemy.

There’s one point I’d like to make about all this, though.

Our society is becoming increasingly hostile to children. This family was punished for the actions of a toddler. She kicked the seat in front of her.

Of course she did.

In order to maximize profit and pack as many folks onto a flight as possible, aircrafts are deliberately designed to have approximately 2.5″ leg room between seats. If a 1-year old’s feet can reach the seat, then maybe the seats are a bit too close together, amirite?

Now, I’m not excusing the behavior of all kids, there are some horrid ones out there. And it is a horrible thing to have some kid kicking your seat for funsies. At the same time, you can’t have planes that don’t allow children.

Air travel sucks. For everyone.

Can you imagine how much it sucks for a restless toddler that can’t even understand why they’re stuck to a seat for hours? Or why they had to spend 2 hours at the airport beforehand?

A woman told a mother to ‘tie her kids’ legs together‘ so she’s not disturbed on a flight. As a parent, that ticks me off.

But that’s just hunky dory according to JetBlue. I say that because that woman wasn’t kicked off the plane, too. No, it was the family that dared to bring children on an airline and refuses to take abuse from another passenger.

We don’t know all the facts, and this family could have been outrageously rude — but that doesn’t seem to be the case if you listen to the comments of the other passengers on the first video.

Still, it appears that the manager that had the Raanans step off the plane didn’t do the same for the complaining customer.

JetBlue doesn’t seem to have been equitable with their dealing of their customers in this situation.

To put it bluntly, it rewarded the complaining customer and punished a whole family because of the actions of a toddler.

Great work, JetBlue.

Airline travel brings out the worst in people, and airlines are not making it any better. Your carry-on has to be smaller than your wallet, and on some airlines you get charged extra for a couple of stale saltines and a third of a cup of flat soda. It’s disgraceful. But they’ve got you over a barrel. And they know it.

Doug Giles, best-selling author of Raising Righteous And Rowdy Girls and Editor-In-Chief of the mega-blog, ClashDaily.com, has just penned a book he guarantees will kick hipster males into the rarefied air of masculinity. That is, if the man-child will put down his frappuccino; shut the hell up and listen and obey everything he instructs them to do in his timely and tornadic tome. Buy Now:The Effeminization Of The American Male

Share if you think that JetBlue’s treatment of this family is disgraceful

ClashDaily's Associate Editor since August 2016.
Self-described political junkie, anti-Third Wave Feminist, and a nightmare to the 'intersectional' crowd. Mrs. Walker has taken a stand against 'white privilege' education in public schools. She's also an amateur Playwright, occasional Drama teacher, and staunch defender of the Oxford comma.
Follow her humble musings on Twitter: @TheMrsKnowItAll

Join the conversation!

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please hover over that comment, click the ∨ icon, and mark it as spam. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.